Gun victims need more than prayers
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist  |  March 15, 2005

A MAN fires away at a church in suburban Milwaukee, kills seven people and himself, and a county district attorney says it was ''heartbreaking, overwhelming, and an unbelievable tragedy. Surreal is probably what comes to mind.''

An inmate in Atlanta who was headed to court brutally beat a courthouse deputy for her gun, kills four people, and Lieutenant Governor Mark Taylor temporarily turned the state Senate into church by saying, ''If there ever was a day we need a devotional and prayer, it is today.''

A man in Chicago kills the husband and mother of a judge, eventually kills himself and leaves behind a note boasting about having a ''.22 with a noise reducer, relatively quiet and effective'' and another gun of ''greater force.'' A city maintenance worker in Los Angeles, apparently angry after being told he was late for work, returned with an AK-47 and

killed two co-workers at the office.

These killings over the last month follow a spate of other multiple killings. In Columbus, Ohio, a man came onstage at a heavy-metal concert and shot dead a guitarist and three other people before being killed by police. In the northern woods of Wisconsin, a hunter killed six people and wounded two others after being told he was trespassing. The total: more than two dozen people killed in a wide swath of Americana -- a forest, a

home, an office, a club, a church, and a courthouse. The victims get devotionals and prayer. But that is all they get. There is certainly no political action.

The level of carnage by these depressed or angry people was only possible because they had their hands on a gun. At the heavy-metal shooting, the assailant had so much ammunition that one music fan, who was trapped in a corner, said, ''I have no doubt that if that cop wouldn't have killed him, we would have all been dead.''

Yet, nearly six years after Columbine and other mass shootings, the nation seems even further away from any serious control on guns. Congress is hearing testimony on new resolutions to shield gun makers from liability lawsuits. Leading the effort, of course, is the National Rifle Association, which shamelessly links liability immunity to patriotism. Saying ''the entire gun industry is at risk of being eradicated'' and ''Americans remain one antigun judge or jury away from seeing the firearms industry destroyed,'' the NRA says on its website, ''Remember, too, that this is the same industry that provides firearms to our fighting men and women in the US military.''

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms industry, adds that such lawsuits ''are meant to eliminate a segment of the manufacturing industry and the jobs of tens of thousands it employs. ... These businesses not only provide materials our men and women in uniform need to win the war against terrorism, but also the goods that 40 million Americans use to enjoy recreational shooting and hunting with

firearms.''

A key pro-gun politician, Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho, has said, ''These outrageous lawsuits attempting to hold a law-abiding industry responsible for the acts of criminals are a threat to jobs and the economy, jeopardize the exercise of constitutionally protected freedoms, undermine national security and circumvent Congress and state legislatures. They must be stopped.''

It is of course of no interest to the pro-gun politicians that the gun industry tries to outdo itself to pump out guns that have ''greater force'' than the next. A new handgun that can fire bullets capable of penetrating body armor recently was found during a drug bust in New Jersey.

But with the assault-weapons ban expired even for machine guns, stopping the proliferation of potentially cop-killing guns seems a long ways away on Capitol Hill. That is even with the police commissioners protesting the guns. In a post-9/11 United States, where a president was reelected partially on lingering fear of international terrorism, it still does not register with Americans how we do ourselves in with everyday domestic terrorism.

Without any help from Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, we take out 30,000 of our own people a year with firearms through homicide, suicide, or accidents. Yet, The Boston Globe just this weekend had an article on the growth of target shooting by women from 2.7 million in 1998 to 3.9 million in 2003, according to the National Sporting Goods Association. I have no qualm about target shooting or seasonal hunting. But inevitably, as statistics show, some women who go on to purchase a handgun for the home will eventually be killed with it in a domestic violence dispute. The gun lobby says we need the firearms industry to win the war on terror. They could care less that we are losing the war on violence right here at home.

www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/03/15/gun_victims_need_more_than_prayers/

YESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! American-180!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

I'm actually getting tired of writing these people and correcting them. Sigh.

Sweet!

Kharn

Wahoo! Where's the line for the M249 start?

Does this mean I can have a minigun for the sum of 249.99 before taxes? Where's the forms?

So I wonder if this just eliminates the form 4, photos, fingerprints, waiting and all that or if new receivers can actually be produced as machineguns now.  Because then the prices would go down, too.

Quoted: Wahoo! Where's the line for the M249 start?

Wow! I'll take a few also.  So many choices . . .

"FN was rushed today by rabid gun owners demanding SS190s and SBR'd P90s."

So there are like 4-5 shooting incidents, and people cry for legislation banning firearms? How about the people killed by vehicles? BAN THEM, FOR THE CHILDREN.

Quoted: So there are like 4-5 shooting incidents, and people cry for legislation banning firearms? How about the people killed by vehicles? BAN THEM, FOR THE CHILDREN.

Doctors kill more people, each year in the U.S., by multiples that of firearm deaths.

Ban doctors. Hell, ban knives. Ban cigarettes, ban masturbatory devices.

Fvck the Boston Globe and the worthless city which supports it.....I'm stationed in Boston - fvcking sucks but I am moving to New Hampshire to live next week...........the media in Boston isn't liberal........they are WAY past that point...........socialist c#cksuckers is what they are........We should give Boston to a foreign country - along with Seattle and San Francisico.....and whatever other socialist meccas come to mind......"Conservative Republicans" in Boston hate guns.......Fvck that city.

Glad to hear Machine guns are now legal. What an idiot writer.

If indeed there were 30,000 gun deaths in the US in the past year as reported, (I doubt the validity of this number), then Derrick Z. Jackson, the Globe, and all of the other Anti-gun zealots have that blood on THEIR hands.

How is this possible you ask? Think about it. These asshats want no guns. Period. It could then be argued that they are promoting the defenselessness of law abiding citizens.

Even they have to admidt that criminals by definition commit crimes. Many times these are gun violence crimes. Gun laws have no effect on what types of, the number of, and the use of guns by criminals.

It is their position that by passing laws, (which criminals ignore), guns will be taken out of the hands of the populace thereby leaving the law abiding portion of said populace defenseless.

Since they are promoting defenselessness of law abiding citizens, they must also take responsibility for the blood spilled due to that same defenselessness. Thus this misinformed, miguided, asshat reporter should shut his cocksheath...and think about all of the blood on his hands.  


Sua Sponte

Not one of those involved machine guns. Including the AWB.

WOOHOOO!!!(grins while marking hole for auto sear)

j/k

FREE

Someone needs to make one and get caught and then sue the paper. After all they said it is legal!

Quoted: I'm actually getting tired of writing these people and correcting them. Sigh.

Same. I now settle for advocating their deaths.

Quoted: Someone needs to make one and get caught and then sue the paper. After all they said it is legal!

Maybe for reporters it is legal.  Didn't CNN just get away with some funny-business with taking a 50 cal across state lines after a strawman purchase or something?
They seem to get to so stuff we can't.

Quoted: Quoted: I'm actually getting tired of writing these people and correcting them. Sigh. Same. I now settle for advocating their deaths.

"Vote from the rooftops"?

Gee , Duh , I Duh, Geez, I Wonder What The Political Party This Asshat Belongs To?

DEMOCRAP Perhaps?

I say keep up the anti-gun Cry Baby Whining, Democraps    WEREPUBLICANS Back Your First Amend. Rights 100%, Even Though You Want To Take Away Our 2nd Amend Rights


Because As Long As  Liberal Jihadist Like This Fool Keep Up The Anti-Gun Jihad  , The "Red States" Will Be Forever................... RED


Thanks  Democraps ..................Your Failed Commie Gun Control Party Platform Is the Gift That Keeps On Giving....Yea Baby.....